Scientists continue to study extreme environments on Earth to better understand the types of environments in which life could exist elsewhere in the universe. In a recent study, scientists from the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and the Universities of Northumbria and Edinburgh drilled through a thin ice layer (approximately 10 feet) to reach Lake Hodgson on the Antarctic Peninsula. A British Antarctic Survey press release describes:

The research team drilling into Lake Hodgson. (Credit: BAS)

The lake was thought to be a harsh environment for any form of life but the layers of mud at the bottom of the lake represent a time capsule storing the DNA of the microbes which have lived there throughout the millennia. The top few centimetres of the core contained current and recent organisms which inhabit the lake but once the core reached 3.2 m deep the microbes found most likely date back nearly 100,000 years.

The team’s preliminary findings were published in the online journal Diversity. David Pearce, the study’s lead author, notes, “What was surprising was the high biomass and diversity we found. This is the first time microbes have been identified living in the sediments of a subglacial Antarctic lake and indicates that life can exist and potentially thrive in environments we would consider too extreme.” These extremophiles use a variety of chemical methods to sustain life both with and without oxygen. According to the British Antarctic Survey, many of the species collected from Lake Hodgson “are likely to be new to science,” so scientists are anxious to investigate these life forms.

In November 2012, researchers discovered a “diverse and thriving community of microbes” in Lake Vida, another subglacial lake in Antarctica.

This type of research and these discoveries provide scientists with clues for how life might survive on alien planets.

On Sunday, January 20, officials announced that data from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and ESA’s Mars Express spacecraft provides evidence of a wet underground environment, and clues that suggest a groundwater-fed lake could have existed in McLaughlin Crater–a crater fifty-seven miles in diameter and 1.4 miles deep.

Locations of minerals and clays in McLaughlin Crater where a groundwater lake may have existed in the ancient past. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona)

As RedOrbit.com explains, researchers suspect a lake inside McLaughlin Crater would have been fed by groundwater because “McLaughlin lacks large inflow channels, and small channels originating within the crater wall end near a level that could have marked the surface of a lake.” Spectrometer data collected by MRO indicates that flat, layered rocks in the crater contain carbonate and clay minerals, suggesting the presence of water. Joseph Michalski, the research paper’s lead author, believes “it is likely the carbonate formed within a lake-style environment rather than being carried into McLaughlin Crater from an external source.”

According to the Daily Mail, Michalski feels that “All the ingredients were there for life, but only small single-cell organisms could have survived in those conditions.” Still, the new data is exciting, and Michalski optimistically stated, “But I would now be more surprised if there was never any life on Mars than I would be if we did one day discover that simple life lived in that environment. And if life existed then, there is a chance it could still exist now.”

Researchers believe this is the “strongest evidence yet” that Mars may have supported life.

The team’s research results were published in the online edition of the journal Nature Geoscience.

]]>http://www.openminds.tv/probe-finds-strongest-evidence-yet-of-extraterrestrial-life-on-mars-900/18333/feed0Antarctic microbes provide clues to extraterrestrial lifehttp://www.openminds.tv/antarctic-microbes-provide-clues-to-extraterrestrial-life-880/17818
http://www.openminds.tv/antarctic-microbes-provide-clues-to-extraterrestrial-life-880/17818#respondWed, 28 Nov 2012 16:53:36 +0000http://www.openminds.tv/?p=17818New findings are giving researchers a better understanding of the extreme environments in which life as we know it can exist.

Researchers used drills and heated pipes to drill sixty feet into the Antarctic ice before reaching Lake Vida, a lake that has been isolated for an estimated 2,800 years. The temperature of the water was found to be approximately eight degrees Fahrenheit with a saltiness of about five to six times greater than average ocean water, which is what keeps Lake Vida’s water from freezing. The water was also found to be mildly acidic and completely depleted of oxygen. Yet, in this harsh environment, samples collected from the lake reveal that a “diverse and thriving community of microbes in the brine” has managed to survive for millennia.

The brine had very high levels of carbon-based compounds, the building blocks of life. It also possessed high levels of chemicals that generally react with each other, such as nitrous oxide and molecular hydrogen, suggesting they were being regularly replenished — a surprising discovery, given how the lake was isolated for millennia from any obvious external sources of energy to help create them.

Understanding extreme environments where life exists here on Earth helps researchers better understand where life might exist elsewhere in the universe. Peter Doran, one of the researchers who participated in the Lake Vida study explains, “By seeing what the boundaries of life are on Earth, that helps us when we go out and look for examples elsewhere.” Similar sub-surface lakes exist on alien worlds like the icy moons of Saturn and Jupiter, and researchers hope to one day drill through the ice on those worlds in search of life.

On Earth, where there is water, there is life. And as scientists are discovering, this holds true even in the most extreme environments. Time will tell if the same thing holds true throughout the universe.

In the famous words of the fictitious Dr. Ian Malcolm from the movie Jurassic Park, “Life finds a way.”

The detailed findings from Lake Vida were published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

A recent story on our website, “Russia using UFOs to boost tourism” by Jason McClellan, based on an article posted online by the Voice of Russia, discussed “a new tourist route of the Leningrad region” based on an intriguing incident on Lake Korbozero that took place back on the night of April 27-28, 1961.

UFO tourism of course is not a new concept in Russia, the US, or many other parts of the world. Various tours have been developed around high profile cases or facilities like Roswell and Area 51. But what is unusual about this new tour is that the Korbozero case is rather obscure and there is very little data about it online. When Jason first mentioned it to me, the name of Korb Lake didn’t ring a bell initially but once I read some of the details about the physical evidence that had been retrieved by divers on the lake, I did remember reading some reports of it in the papers of the late Professor Felix Zigel, who is universally acknowledged as the founding father of Russian ufology.

I wrote a biographical article about Dr. Felix Yuerevich Zigel (1920-1988) for the “Researcher Profile” section of Open Minds magazine (Issue Nº 4, Oct./Nov. 2010). Zigel was an astronomer, author of dozens of popular scientific books, and associate professor at the prestigious Moscow Aviation Institute, although he is now best known for his pioneering work of building Russian (then Soviet) ufology. His dealings with the Soviet communist state and scientific bureaucracy shifted back and forth over the years. There were times when his work was approved officially, like the publication of his milestone article “Unidentified Flying Objects” in Soviet Life in February 1968 (Soviet Life was an official, glossy magazine published in dozens of foreign languages with a positive spin on Communist society).

However, most of Zigel’s UFO work couldn’t pass the barriers of Soviet censorship, but that didn’t stop the professor and his close group of associates. Zigel’s UFO investigations instead were circulated in photocopies through the underground system known as samizdat that existed unofficially in the Soviet era. Some of these Zigel documents went not only around Russia and the other Soviet republics, but also abroad, where they were translated into various languages. One of the most precious Zigel manuscripts is the volume titled, UFO Landings in the USSR and Other Countries, which was translated to English by Dimitri Ossipov and published in a limited edition by Dr. Richard Haines of the Joint USA-CIS Aerial Anomaly Federation.

It is in this book that we find a short summary of the 1961 Korbozero case, which we reproduce below. The term “LO” stands for cases where “there are no witnesses to the [UFO] landing, but on the ground surface there are traces typical in landing sites.” Here is the complete summary by Dr. Zigel:

Landings – class LO *

Mysterious destructions on Korb-Ozero

This case was described in detail by an investigator V. Demidov in a book “We go last,” Nol. Guardia 1967, and in article “What was it?” Znanie-Sila, No. 6, 1968. It was also reported in my manuscript “UFO observations in the USSR,” issue 2, 1975.

Cover of one of Zigel’s scientific books, Wonders of the Night Sky, translated to English by Mir Publishers in Moscow. (Credit: Huneeus Collection)

In the morning of 27 April 1961, two dam inspectors from a lumber farm went to inspect dams before the spring floods. In the evening of the same day, they came to the small Korb-Ozero lake (Karelia). They inspected the dam, and spent the night at 6 km. from the lake. The next morning, one of the inspectors, V. M. Brodsky, came back to the lake, and found there an amazing scenery: Their yesterday’s traces were erased by a hole, 10 m. wide, 25 m. long and 5 m. deep, with its “mouth” toward the shore’s precipice. This “mouth” had walls with a negative slope. On the lake, which was still covered with ice, there was a large unfrozen area of water.

In answer to a call from the inspector, V. Demidov, together with a diver thoroughly inspected the area. It was found that chunks of ice, swimming in the unfrozen water, were colored in emerald color. In a water swam greyish foams, and amid them some little balls resembling millet grains.

Neither on the shore, nor at the bottom of the lake (30 m. deep) were found any objects which could be connected to the cause of the event. Neither at the bottom, or below it, were found any metal traces. True, divers have noticed at the bottom of the lake two spits, connected by a cylinder of 1.5 m. wide. Between spits, there was a cylindrical depression, giving an impression that some “pipe” was laying at the bottom of the lake. Residents of the nearest settlement (30 KM. from the lake), heard and saw nothing that night.

This event remains a mystery up to this day. Consultations with specialists fully exclude hypotheses of landslide, Karst occurrence, ball lightning or meteorite. During melting of the ice, the emerald substance formed a sediment. In it were found small quantities of silicon, magnesium, iron, aluminum, sodium, calcium, barium and boron. The two first mentioned elements were predominant.

In the water and sediments were discovered some organic substances of unknown origin. In the depression were found small plates, 1 m. thick. (Scale type). Basic elements – iron and silicon. Some of these plates contain significant admixture of sodium and lithium.

The above mentioned black grains were noticeable by their metallic brilliance and turned out to be acid-resistant. In the opinion of specialists, they are of an artificial origin. All substances during tests had a high acid resistance and thermal stability. Elements found in a melted ice do not explain green color of ice. There was no noticeable radio-activity.

What has happened there? What caused the destruction on Korb Ozero? It is not possible for the present to answer these questions. Even though nobody has observed a UFO, the landing and the take-off of the “flying saucer” could be in principle the cause if the mysterious event.

The second Zigel report

Although I remember having a copy of the English version of Victor Demidov’s original Znanie-Sila article published in Sputnik magazine (the Russian equivalent to Reader’s Digest), I was unable to find it in my archives so far. But I did find a second, more complete report by Dr. Zigel, “UFO Ground Effect Cases in Russia,” were the scientific analysis of the Korbozero samples are discussed in detail. It was obtained years ago by MUFON member Joseph Brill and translated to English by Professor Julian Steen. We reproduce this article in full in PDF format as it was published in UFOlogy magazine in the fall of 1976.

The Korbozero case is an unusual incident. Although there was no known UFO sighting, the physical evidence retrieved on the site was both intriguing and significant. Furthermore, Korbozero is important in the history of Russian ufology as the details were published and circulated even in the days when the subject was heavily censored in the USSR.

Multiple witnesses reportedly witnessed UFOs over Muskegon Lake in Michigan on the evening of Saturday, May 26.

According to The Muskegon Chronicle, witness Michael White photographed two lights over the lake at approximately 9:45 p.m. The two orange UFOs were seen hovering in the sky, and were completely silent. White described that he watched the objects moving, but then they “stopped and hovered then shot away at a extremely fast rate of speed.”

Another individual reportedly witnessed the lights in the sky, but only saw them hovering in the sky and slowly disappearing from sight.

The Muskegon Chronicle contacted local police and the United States Coast Guard. Neither the police nor the Coast Guard received any reports about these lights in the sky. But a Coast Guard Petty Officer Ronnie Mason explained to the Chronicle that UFOs around water are sometimes caused by “light reflecting off boats’ windshields during sunset, or lights on boats when it gets dark.” However, based on witness testimony related to this latest sighting, these UFOs have Mason “stumped.”

In December 2010, scientists announced the discovery of arsenic-based bacteria living in California’s Mono Lake. NASA excitedly declared that this discovery would “impact the search for evidence of extraterrestrial life.” Researchers currently studying another lake also hope their findings will impact the search for extraterrestrial life.

On Wednesday, February 8, 2012, Russian scientists announced they had reached a subglacial lake under Antarctica named Lake Vostok, which is located in the central part of the continent, approximately 800 miles East of the South Pole. This ancient freshwater lake was buried under 12,365 feet of ice, and is believed to have been cut off from the atmosphere for at least 14 million years. Scientists hope to learn about early life on Earth from this ancient lake, but they also hope to gain insight into what kind of life might exist in similar conditions elsewhere in the universe. The Washington Post explains:

Many scientists see Vostok as not only a last frontier on Earth but also a potential gold mine for learning about possible conditions on Jupiter’s moon Europa or Saturn’s moon Encedadus. Each is covered by a thick shell of ice with liquid water below, warmed by either the inner heat of the moon or by tidal forces.

Similarly, astrobiologist Dale Andersen of the SETI Institute’s Carl Sagan Center for the Study of Life in the Universe told Discovery News, “The real value is that it helps us learn how to explore these kinds of environments better. It opens up your imagination for how to explore these kinds of environments, whether it’s on Earth or Europa.”

Scientists hope that data from Vostok will provide valuable information that will help in designing equipment to look for life beyond Earth. But according to Discovery News, a water sample will not be able to be retrieved for at least another year. The drilling process took more than two decades to complete, so I imagine scientists can handle one more year of waiting.